Free compiler for commercial development? (mingw?)

This is a discussion on Free compiler for commercial development? (mingw?) within the Windows Programming forums, part of the Platform Specific Boards category; Hi-
I've been asked to create an app that may be sold for a profit. It's kind of an experiment, ...

Free compiler for commercial development? (mingw?)

Hi-
I've been asked to create an app that may be sold for a profit. It's kind of an experiment, and I'm not sure if it will really take off. I'd like to not have to shell out a lot of dough for some development tools. What are the restrictions on software compiled with mingw? D they fall under the GPL? The way I understand it, only software that includes other software under GPL must be distributed under GPL. Does this happen woth mingw (this is what I don't understand) if I #include windows.h, what is being compiled into my exe? Studd that is already part of windows, or something that is distributed with mingw under GPL?

It comes with a shell. i was looking at stdio.h of borland and vctoolkit2003 to see if i could port the win32 apps over but they are way to different. they should have included win32 app stuff with the toolkit. meow.